it all has to end sometime
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well. It should be fought by another kind of evil.


**Title:** it all has to end sometime

**Author:** Jedi Buttercup

**Rating:** M

**Disclaimer:** The words are mine; the worlds are not.

**Summary:** _In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well. It should be fought by another kind of evil._ 2000 words.

**Spoilers:** Pre-"Pacific Rim"; fusion with all Riddick canon.

**Notes:** 24 Days of Ficmas 2013, Day 19: for hiddencait. Prompt: "Pacific Rim/Riddickverse - To fight monsters, they needed monsters." Please note, this is a sepia-toned take on Pacific Rim, in tune with the Riddick-verse, not the canon cheerfully apocalyptic eye-candy! Summary is a direct quote from Chronicles of Riddick. Originally posted to LJ on 11/3/14.

* * *

They say your brain shuts down in the Drift. All but the primitive side.

All but the _instinctual_ side. Raw nature, red in tooth and claw. It ain't the full truth, of course... but it's close enough for government work. Never thought I'd be one to say that unironically.

I'd wondered what they saw in me, when they took me off that chopper; after the kid, the Imam, and I managed to escape that death zone out in the desert. Whole lot of civilians had died in that crash, or after, and I'd expected to get tagged for those forty-plus deaths on top the one I'd actually taken. The one I was being transported for in the first place. Wouldn't have been the first time I'd taken the rep for something I hadn't done... but the Aussie Ranger whose men found us gave me a long, long, look, then gave me a thin, knife's edge grin and told 'em to package me up for Pentecost.

Not the holy day, it turned out. The Marshall of the Jaeger program. Ex-Jaeger jockey himself. And a more vicious bastard you won't find, outside of me. The first time he put a hanbo in my hands in the Kwoon, I got an inkling; and the first time I jacked into Helion Fury, I _understood_.

It ain't just poetical advertising, what they say. "To fight monsters, we _needed_ monsters of our own." Everyone thought they meant the Jaegers by that. But twenty-odd stories of mechanical weapon wouldn't mean shit without the hands to wield it. The bloodier, the better.

All you need is a strong enough survival instinct, a reason to fight... and a partner.

* * *

Johns ground his jaw, staring across the Kwoon at the convict keeping the Kaidanovskys busy. Richard B. Riddick had thrashed every other solo trainee they'd sent up against him; Pentecost had finally ordered paired pilots onto the mats in order to get a better gauge of his skills.

Which were considerable: the man was a natural Alpha predator, that much was clear. It was why he'd survived so long; how he'd got out of prison after prison after his first arrest for turning on his own Special Ops team, back in the Rockpile. Legends were told about the man: that he could see in the dark, that he disdained guns in favor of killing with hand or blade, that going after him was the equivalent of placing a collect call to the Reaper.

"The fuck I will," he hissed to the Ranger standing next to him. "You may've brought him in, Hansen, but it was _my son_ Pentecost hired to track him down first, and _my son_ he put into the ground."

"You know there's more to the story than that," the Aussie parried, calmly. "The gal we found after we picked up the three in the chopper had a lot to say on the subject. We'd have tried him with _her_, but she's still healing; she'll have to wait to be paired with someone else. We need another team _now_, not after the next incursion."

"I don't fucking care if he shot my boy himself, he left him to die. Left him to be _eaten_. And you expect me to trust him with my back?" Johns bristled.

"If it hadn't been Billy, would you give a shit about that? Look around you, Johns," Hansen snorted. He pointed toward the other watchers clustered at the back of the Kwoon, still waiting their turns. The pilot teams of Conquest Icon and Crimson Typhoon were among them, along with the other half of Lucky Seven's Hansens. "The Vaakos are death cultists, for fuck's sake. How much blood do you think was on _their_ hands before they came to the Shatterdome? The only reason _they_ fight is because the Kaiju are killing people out of 'due time'. The Kaidanovskys came out of the Russian underground. The Weis were wetwork artists- there's a reason everyone thought they were twins, not triplets, before they signed on. And you know why my brother and I are here. Your rep's not that much different from ours, for all you went merc first."

Because he thought he could dispense law better than those with the official badges; yeah, Johns knew. He knew Pentecost's story, too. And he'd heard interesting things about the Becket boys up in Alaska, and the trail they'd left behind them after their mother died and their father abandoned them.

All right, so Hansen had a point there. But.

"My _son_, Hansen," Johns stressed. "You go into a Drift with someone you can't trust at your back, only one comes back out. Or neither. You know that; _Pentecost_ knows that."

"I know. That's why Pentecost didn't take Billy for the pilot pool, after all," Hansen replied, very dryly.

Johns turned, whip-fast, reaching out to gather the man's shirt up in a fist... then changed the motion at the last second, snagging the staff out of his hand instead.

"Fine," he growled. "You got some psychofuck fantasy of how this is going to go? Far be it from me to disappoint." Then he stormed into the center of the room, nodding to the Kaidanovskys as he passed them.

They'd managed a win on points. But if _he_ had to join in this shitshow? There was going to be blood on the floor, one way or another.

* * *

Big Daddy Johns was the _last_ person I expected to see in the Dome's training arena. Made me wonder if Pentecost's offer hadn't been legit after all... not that I expected to lose the match.

But it's always the punch you don't see coming that puts you down.

First mistake I made: expecting Boss Johns to have the same lack of spine as his son. Second mistake: forgetting that the man had been a soldier and merc almost as long as I'd been alive. Had to be a reason Pentecost still found him worth recruiting, despite his graying hair.

I caught on quick. But not quick enough. Four exchanges in, his left arm hung limp from a solid strike... but I was spitting blood, and would probably be pissing it, too, after that blow to the kidney. He'd pulled it enough not to kill me, but not enough to keep it from hurting like a son of a bitch.

I could hear the red-headed Ranger chuckling on the sidelines: the asshole who'd put the cuffs back on me and separated me from al-Walid and Jack. Last thing Jack had said to me was that she'd apply to the nearest PPDC Academy soon as she was old enough for the tests... but after all we'd been through, hell if I was going to let the war go on long enough for _that_. Only reason I hadn't escaped this place, too.

"Save some for the Kaiju, Johns!" Hansen called as we settled back into stance. "And would it kill you just this once to be something other than a goddamned savage, Riddick?"

"You want me to play? I do it on my own terms," I laughed back, baring bloody teeth to distract from fresh aches and pains.

"You think this is a _game_?" Johns growled, circling slowly, keeping us moving. Lot of muscle on the man, fluid and smooth: no thick-neck bruiser, no gym-hardened pill popper. Just a lot of lethal wrapped in cunning and focus.

"Yeah," I replied, making a beckoning motion with my bo. "I like to call it, who's the better killer?"

That prompted a flurry of moves: strike and counterstrike, not quite blow and almost fall, staves colliding with each other with vicious cracks and whistling through the air by ears and wrists and ankles.

It went on... for a while, longer than it ever had before. Longer than I'd fought with any of the others. My brow furrowed as I felt the sweat start to trickle down my back from the effort. I'd heard about the sync effect before; seen the Kaidanovskys do it with each other, seen some of the other Rangers do it, too. Never expected to feel it, though. Never expected the electric tingle starting to spark at every touch, bringing my blood to life: something I'd only felt in one other human's company, before.

Though I'd come close, one other time. Hmm. And wouldn't that torque the father?

"You know Baby Johns and I saved each other once, before the crash?" I smirked, watching Johns' expression sour. "Thought he might actually be someone worth knowing, there for a while. Why I never quite managed to kill him, all the chances I got."

Johns faltered enough at that for me to collect a point; but he recovered fast, as nimble in his rage as everything else. "'Til he gave you his back?" he sneered in return.

"'Til he tried to sacrifice a kid to save his own skin," I replied.

But I wouldn't catch him twice with the same trick; he caught me instead, anticipating his reaction. "That's not the man I knew," he replied, slipping a strike far enough past my guard to even the score.

There's a fine line between killing because you think the other guy deserves it more... and killing because the other guy's _weaker_. Because you _can_. From what I'd seen so far, I had an inkling where Pentecost drew the line for his dogs of war, though it still beat me how he'd fingered me for one of 'em. And Johns knew it, too. I could see it as I rolled and came up, just in time to take the end of his bo _almost_ in the teeth. He pulled it less than an inch short, pained fury still ablaze in his eyes.

"No, that's not the man _you_ are," I chided him, going for a sweep; pulling back as his bo whistled by my ribs, moving into the rhythm of it almost without thinking.

Moving on _instinct_. For the mad joy of it, not the outcome. Like dancing on razorblades.

"Fuck you, Riddick," Johns replied. Still not giving an inch; still fully alive in the moment.

"Make me beg for it," I laughed in reply. "If you can."

This was starting to get interesting.

Seemed like Pentecost had my number, after all.

* * *

Water rushed past the knees of Helion Fury as they charged against a Cat Three, aiming for their third Kaiju kill. Johns clenched their left fist, readying another plasma shot; his part of their gestalt figured range, calculating angles, and beneath the flow of concentration, a keen edge of bloodlust maintained their balance. Their other arm cocked back, positioning their sword to slice deep when the Kaiju inevitably dodged; the fuckers learned quick, but they hadn't won the game yet.

Sensations flickered over their connection- men screaming, the sonar calls of stalking animals, blood splattering hot and wet over sand- then passed through, part and parcel of a deep, hunting Drift.

There were a lot of sayings about looking into the abyss; about hating others most for what one hated about oneself. Objectively, Johns and Riddick only gave those arguments more ammunition, exposing and merging all the ugliest parts of two violent lives: pools of blood spreading to meet in the middle, rather than building some artsy 'bridge' like the scientists talked about.

But Johns had heard somewhere, once, that the original saying wasn't just that blood was thicker than water: that it meant the blood of the covenant was thicker than the water of the womb. Between them, they'd shed a _hell_ of a lot of it. And he'd always been a pragmatic son of a bitch.

_You with me, Johns?_ his partner thought, words curling with deep amusement.

_As if you would ever let me forget it_, he replied. _Now c'mon. Let's kill this fucker before Fry and Dahl get here_.

Some other time, he and Riddick would finish that conversation about Billy. But for now?

They still had more Kaiju to kill.

-x-


End file.
